


a dream from God or demons

by AVegetarianCannibal



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Pining, Visions, when you fall asleep in a motel and miss your excommunicated bae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 01:02:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13089168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: I wrote this little scene for @Crossroadscastiel's birthday over on Tumblr. Takes place some time after the season 2 finale.





	a dream from God or demons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peacefrog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefrog/gifts).



> I wrote this little scene for @Crossroadscastiel's birthday over on Tumblr. Takes place some time after the season 2 finale.

He can’t always tell which are the dreams sent by demons, and which are his own. Are any of them visions of the future, sent by God as warning or invitation? Everything is so… _muddled_ now. They all feel real while he’s in them, and most of them break his heart.

At first, he’s glad for the dreams, because he still has Marcus in them. But after a while it exhausts him, being so ridiculously thrilled to have him at his side again only to wake up without him. He feels like Tantalus in a white collar, and it isn’t a drink of water he seeks.

He notices things in his dreams he somehow didn’t notice before. Like the way Marcus never _just_ smiles. His smiles are warm, sometimes sly. _Frequently_ sly. They are teasing, or comforting. They are not _just_ smiles—not just offhand little expressions. They are purposeful, and he had so very many of them for Tomas. Why didn’t he pay more attention to them while he still had them in front of him? He would have soaked them in like sunlight, burned them into his retinas.

One night, in a motel room in Oklahoma, he watches the late night news and despairs. Every politician he sees, every cruel law they enact in God’s name and contrary to His love, he wonders if they are demons, or merely cruel men.

“Is there any difference?” Marcus asks beside him.

Tomas gives a start. His heart leaps before he remembers. “I must have fallen asleep without realizing,” he says. “Or you’ve come while I’m still awake.”

“Is there any difference?” Marcus asks again. A teasing smile this time.

Marcus stretches out, and Tomas feels the mattress shift as if he were really there.

“There is a difference, my friend,” Tomas says.

“Doesn’t have to be.” Marcus moves again, close enough to feel the phantom warmth of him.

“I would prefer to have the real thing again,” Tomas says even as he leans into that warmth. “Not this figment of my imagination or of the devil’s.”

“Real thing would never do this, though,” Marcus says, and slips his hand under the hem of Tomas’s shirt, until flesh touches flesh. “He’s much more concerned about matters of chastity than either of us, love.”

Tomas closes his eyes, takes a long, shaky breath, and says again, “I would prefer to have the real thing.” He opens his eyes to look at the thing that looks so much like what he wants, down to every line etched on his face. “I want _only_ the real thing, even if all he ever does is walk by my side. It is enough.”

The smile the thing gives him is blistering, and knowing. It is not without mirth. “We’ll see,” the thing says, and vanishes.

Tomas wakes up, not knowing if he was ever asleep at all. It’s all so muddled now, without him.


End file.
